This excellent article describes how the Revolutionary Students Front-Austin (a front group of the Maoist Red Guards-Austin) is openly recruiting mentally ill students at University of Texas-Austin through its Revolutionary Mental Health Program (RMHP) to become revolutionary fighters.

One point that was missed is that the RMHP was modeled on the program of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C) of Turkey to recruit mental ill people, nominally for rehabilitation, but also for use as fighters, including suicide bombers. While many religious terrorist groups (esp. Jihadis) and even a few racial-nationalist groups (Tamil Tigers) employ suicide bombers, not many Marxist groups employ suicide bombers. Religious faith is a stronger motivator of self-sacrifice than workers’ control of the means of production. In part because of this problem of recruitment, hundreds of ISIS suicide bombers were enslaved child soldiers tortured and drugged into submission. Of course the problem in creating a pool of suicide bombers is recruiting, since fanaticism that verges on mental illness is scarce, but recruiting the mental ill and manipulating them into becoming suicide bombers appears to be easier.

One problem in determining exactly what the intentions of the Revolutionary Students Front-Austin might be arises from the fact that many of its leaders are themselves openly mentally ill.

First, a description of the DHKP-C recruitment of the mentally ill from a Revolutionary Students Front-Austin’s Revolutionary Mental Health Program document:

The work done by the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C) in Turkey to combat drug addiction in popular neighborhoods in Istanbul where they have largely won power through military force is a testament to this fact. In these neighborhoods, the DHKP-C operates clinics called Centers for Struggle and Liberation Against Drugs, where addicts can enter into not into bourgeois rehabilitation, but proletarian rehabilitation. In these clinics, those in rehabilitation are offered political education, education in production (in fields like carpentry, welding, etc.), and social integration into a revolutionary community who works tirelessly to fight violently against the fascist Turkish state. Through these methods, the DHKP-C is able to address the question of addiction by reintegrating addicts into all realms of social life and, most importantly, push them forward into the revolutionary struggle that pushes drugs and addiction on the whole people.

2001: DHKP-C added suicide bombings to its operations in 2001 with attacks against Turkish police in January and September of that year. On 10 September 2001, a suicide bomber killed himself and three other people in Istanbul.

2002-2003: Security operations in Turkey and elsewhere have weakened the group, however. DHKP-C did not conduct any major attacks in 2003, although a DHKP-C female suicide bomber Sengul Akkurt’s explosive belt detonated by accident on 20 May 2003 in Ankara, in a restroom, while she was preparing for an action.

2004: On 24 July 2004, another mistaken detonation, on a bus in Istanbul, occurred, killing Semiran Polat of DHKP-C and three more people and injuring 15 others.

2005: On 1 July 2005, Eyup Beyaz of DHKP-C was killed in Ankara in an attempted suicide bombing attack on the ministry of justice.

2012: On 11 September 2012, a suicide bomber, a DHKP-C militant, blew himself up at the Sultangazi district in Istanbul killing himself, a Turkish national and a police officer. The Turkish National Police identified the bomber as Ibrahim Cuhadar, a member of DHKP-C.

2013: On 1 February 2013, a suicide bomber, a DHKP-C militant, blew himself up at the US embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard and wounding several other people. Istanbul police identified the bomber as Ecevit Şanlı, a member of DHKP-C.

2015: On 6 January 2015, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, killing one police officer and injuring another. DHKP-C claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is unclear if the suicide bomber really was allifiated with DHKP-C.